FemTech surveillance: Gendered digital harms and regulatory approaches

Funding: Leverhulme Research Project Grant (RPG-2022-015)

Project start date: 2022

Project end date: 2024

Principal Researcher: Dr Maria Tzanou 

Research Team: Prof Tsachi Keren-Paz (Co-I), Dr Marco Ortolani (Co-I), Dr Anna Nelson (PDRA) and Rory Gee (RA).

Research Context:

‘Femtech’ encompasses a broad range of software (apps) and hardware (wearables) aimed at supporting women and gender minorities to track, understand and manage their menstrual, reproductive and sexual health. FemTech promises to empower women to achieve a ‘quantified’ knowledge of the ‘self’ and to redress the balance following centuries of androcentric medicine.

Project Research: 

There is growing recognition that the use of FemTech and FemTech data may result in harm to users. For example when Roe v Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a lot of concern arose around the data collected by period tracking apps, and the potential for this to be used  to support prosecutions. This project contributes towards bringing much needed attention to the different types of digital and embodied risks and harms that are potentially associated with the use of FemTech. It draws attention to the fact that such harms may be both individual and collective in nature. 

Exploring regulatory and remedial responses to FemTech surveillance, the project explores whether these adequately reflect and address the potential harms associated with FemTech. In particular, emphasises the need for these responses to recognise: (1) the nature of the harm as gendered; (2) the harms potentially undermining bodily integrity, in case of FemTech wearables; (3) the nature of FemTech surveillance as performed by private, profit-seeking actors, which arguably act both as regulators and regulatees; and (4) the duality of femtech products as straddling the line between treatment and research. 

Research Approach:

This research combines approaches from both public and private law with insights from computer science in order to empirically examine and holistically interrogate the promises and surveillance practices of FemTech. This will allow us to make informed recommendations regarding the regulatory and remedial responses needed to adequately protect FemTech users from a wide range of risks and harms.

Publications - Forthcoming and Under Preparation: 

• Anastasia Siapka, Maria Tzanou & Anna Nelson, ‘Re-imagining data protection: Femtech and gendered risks in the GDPR’ in Róisin Costello & Mark Leiser (eds) Reflections on the First Five Years of the GDPR (forthcoming with Hart Publishing, 2024). 
• Tsachi Keren-Paz, Anna Nelson & Maria Tzanou, ‘FemTech Wearables and Embodied Harms’ (under preparation)

Blogs & Other Activity: 

• Pint of Science 2024, Presentation: FemTech: Gendered Harms & Data Justice

• Recommending Privately-Developed FemTech in Healthcare Part 1: Promises and Pitfalls

• Recommending Privately Developed FemTech in Healthcare Part 2: Understanding Healthcare Professionals’ Responsibilities

If you would like to find out more about our project, please do get in touch:

Maria Tzanou: m.tzanou@sheffield.ac.uk 

Tscahi Keren-Paz: t.keren-paz@sheffield.ac.uk
Marco Ortolani: m.ortolani@keele.ac.uk 

Anna Nelson: anna.nelson@sheffield.ac.uk